As the temperatures soar and humidity levels escalate, many citizens and expats living in the UAE become “bored” with living life indoors.

Truth be told, we have an uncanny ability to become bored no matter what our situation. I have two schools of thought on boredom. The first that boredom is essentially ‘laziness in disguise’ and the second is that boredom is a distraction from creation.

Boredom is laziness in disguise.

Many times, I’ve been aware that I have pending chores to be completed and have made the excuse that “I’m bored” to avoid getting to the chores. At other times I’ve played mindless games on my phone because apparently, I was bored when in reality, I was creating a distraction from doing the many tasks I knew were waiting for me. There are times when my creative juices are flowing, and I will deliberately distract myself with some mindless tasks to avoid getting too involved. What is that? Why would I stop myself from being productive? It CANNOT be a survival instinct, surely!? Or can it? Can I save myself by being bored? Perhaps not. I can, however, prevent myself from being seen and therefore being judged, and in that way, I could save myself from “death by embarrassment” if that’s a thing! I put it down to being lazy. Too lazy to complete the creation I was working on. It’s terrible to have to admit that because “laziness” is a sin, isn’t it?

And here’s another challenge, have you tried deliberately to be “bored”? Let’s take a quick moment to stop whatever it is you’re doing, and I do mean whatever, including reading this blog. Now for the next 2 minutes (you can start a timer) sit with your hands under your lap, phone, TV, laptop off, no music or anything to keep your mind occupied and just allow yourself to be “bored”. I have tried this, and it is NOT easy.

I will let you know a little secret though, some of my best ideas have stemmed from periods of self-imposed boredom because despite my damnedest efforts to distract myself from creating, the ideas were too good to be ignored and have resulted in some amazing finished products.

Bottom-line: boredom isn’t as bad as it’s made out to be. It helps us in ways we never imagined.

Do share some thoughts on boredom and on any crazy creations that stemmed from boredom.